A variety of operating room systems are known for performing both diagnostic and surgical procedures. In particular, systems have been provided that allow a surgeon to perform a procedure with a wide range of medical and operating room equipment. This equipment ranges from visual imaging tools (e.g., endoscopes, cameras, etc.) and systems, to medical devices (e.g. tools for cutting, grasping, extracting, irrigating, etc.), and other operating room equipment.
These systems have provided for improved and more efficient surgical procedures. However, medical costs continue to increase as do the cost associated with the purchasing and maintaining of medical equipment. Accordingly, it is advantageous to minimize the number of different operating control room systems purchased for a hospital. For example, it is more cost efficient to have one operating room control system and schedule multiple procedures at different times during the day than to have multiple operating room control systems that sit idle for portions of the day.
Likewise, as the number of individuals seeking medical procedures continue to increase, it is important to closely schedule procedures to maximize the number of medical procedures that can be performed on an operating room control system during a day.
In particular, operating room visualization equipment has been provided that allows for visualization of the interior of an organ or joint while a surgeon is conducting a procedure. These visualization systems allow for a surgeon to view, typically on a surgical monitor placed either in or adjacent to the sterile environment, a location inside the body where the procedure is being performed. These systems have further allowed for the recording of still pictures and video recordings of the area and procedure. Not only have the surgeon and those in the operating room been able to view the surgical site on the surgical monitor, but systems have further provided for the transfer of visualization information via a network connection to remote locations from the operating room. In this manner, individuals have had the capacity to view a surgical procedure from different locations. This has proved to be a very helpful educational tool (e.g. medical students can view a medical procedure from a class room) and has allowed for specialists to view the surgical procedure from a distance to provide expert analysis and input to the surgeon.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,069,420 to Roderick Plummer (the Plummer patent) discloses a system that allows for the identification of video collecting sources and the video destinations such that the surgeon need only select the icon on the touchscreen corresponding to the video input device and select the icon on the touchscreen corresponding to the desired destination and the video is routed to the desired destination.
The Plummer patent was a very large leap over prior art systems in that it allowed the surgeon control via a very user friendly interface to route medical imaging data by simply selecting the icon on the touch screen.
However, while audio-visual capabilities have continued to be developed and improved, the image data that is generated by the visualization equipment tends to be quite large. These image files (videos of the medical procedure) can be saved to many differing locations including a local DVD drive or to a remote storage device whether on the hospital information system or to the surgeon's computer in his/her office.
A major problem with current systems is that when the operating room control system is initiated and in use for a current medical procedure, the current medical procedure must be completed before the operating room control system can be initiated for the next medical procedure. With the advent of recording the surgical procedure to one or more storage devices, it has become a problem that the medical personnel have to wait for the image data to be transferred and completed before the operating room control system can be set up for the next medical procedure. This has lead to the medical team sitting around for large periods of time while the operating room control system writes the image data to, for example, a DVD.